Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hello all my cyberspace friends, and welcome to the Oppression Virtual Launch Party! Glad you could come by and party with us! *virtual dance* Kidding, I don't dance :P But you can if you'd like!

Oppression is out today (Feb. 28, 2012), and for those of you not familiar with Jessica Therrien's debut novel, here is the synopsis:

Oppression (Children of the Gods #1)--Jessica TherrienElyse knows what it means to keep a secret. She's been keeping secrets her whole life. Two, actually. First, that she ages five times slower than the average person, so that while she looks eighteen years old, she's closer to eighty. Second, that her blood has a mysterious power to heal. For Elyse, these things don't make her special. They make life dangerous. After the death of her parents, she's been careful to keep her secret as closely guarded as possible. Now, only one other person in the world knows about her age and ability. Or so she thinks. Elyse is not the only one keeping secrets. There are others like her all over the world, descendants of the very people the Greeks considered gods. She is one of them, and they have been waiting for her for a long time. Among so many of her kind, she should not be very remarkable--except for the prophecy. Some believe she will put an end to traditions, safeguarded by violence, which have oppressed her people for centuries. Others are determined to keep her from doing just that. But for Elyse, the game is just beginning--and she's not entirely willing to play by their rules.

That sounds pretty cool, right? Since I'm a mythology junkie and all (especially if it's Greek), this book totally caught my attention! Greek mythology is just the best!

By what we read in the blurb above, we know that Elyse's destiny is deeply intertwined with the fate of the future, right? That means that her fate/destiny is already laid out before her. Some people believe that the future is set in stone, while others think that your future can change by the simple choices you make in your everyday life. I am not exactly sure which of these is or isn't true. However, I find that the ancient Greeks had a very cool and interesting interpretation of fate.

What I love about ancient Greece, is that they had a god or goddess for (literally) everything! They had gods of water, sky, earth, love, justice, healing, music, archery, marriage, childbirth, day, night, sleep, dreams...I could just go on and on and on, but I wont. However, one of the more important deities in Greek mythology were the three Fates (also known as the Moirai), goddesses of fate and destiny.

These goddesses determined when life began, ended, and they decided what happened in between. They wove the good and the evil into the (metaphorical) thread of life for everyone and decided how long they lived. They were so powerful that not even the gods could escape them.

Clotho spun the thread of life on her spindle and was the decider of major decisions, such as when a person was to be born.

Lachesis measured the thread of life and determined the persons destiny. She decided how much time of life was to be allowed to each person and she also chose the persons destiny after the thread was measured out. She appeared with her sisters within 3 days of a child's birth to decide their fate.

Atropos was the one who cut the thread of life. She had the ability to choose the time and the manner of a person's death. And it makes sense that her name means "inflexible" or "inevitable," since death is afterall, inevitable.

That being said, I cannot wait to read this book and see what the Fates have weaved into Elyse's destiny!

I bought the E-book yesterday for only .99 cents, and you can too! Just visit any of the following links...and make it soon because the book wont always be .99 cents!

For months part-angel Clara Gardner trained to face the raging forest fire from her visions and rescue the alluring and mysterious Christian Prescott from the blaze. But nothing could prepare her for the fateful decisions she would be forced to make that day, or the startling revelation that her purpose—the task she was put on earth to accomplish—is not as straightforward as she thought.Now, torn between her increasingly complicated feelings for Christian and her love for her boyfriend, Tucker, Clara struggles to make sense of what she was supposed to do the day of the fire. And, as she is drawn further into the world of part angels and the growing conflict between White Wings and Black Wings, Clara learns of the terrifying new reality that she must face: Someone close to her will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.

My rating:★★★★★

This book was just...wow! I don’t even know if I can put my thoughts into a coherent review, but I’ll try!

Earth's last line of defense against the coming alien invasion is a 16-year-old surfer. But before Colt McAlister can save the world, he has to survive the day.
All Colt wants to do is return to his old life-where aliens don't exist, where mankind hasn't been targeted for destruction, and where his parents are still alive. Unfortunately life doesn't work that way.
The United States government believes Colt holds the key to our survival, so they're sending him to the C.H.A.O.S. Military Academy along with his best friends Oz and Danielle. There they'll be trained to defend Earth against a swarm of alien shapeshifters known as the Thule. But someone is trying to eliminate Colt before he can lead that charge. Shocked to learn about key events in his past and unsure who he can trust, Colt is alienated and on the run.
In a world of high-tech gear, shape-shifting aliens, simulated reality, and hoverboards, Colt must step into his true destiny before our world falls in chaos.

My rating:★★★★★

It’s finally time for Colt, Oz, and Danielle to go to the CHAOS Academy! What is CHAOS, you might be asking. “CHAOS—Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural. They were a bit like the CIA or FBI, but instead of going after drug cartels or spying on the Russians, they protected the world from nightmares like bioengineered monsters, alien life forms, and sparkling vampires.” Ha! I loved that last one, me being an ex-Twilight Freak and all ;) Anyway, so students in this school are trained to do all this secret spy stuff to save the world and what not. Pretty cool, eh? Well not everything is cool here, especially since someone is trying to kill Colt…even at school! All these “accidents” nearly got Colt killed, and the people Colt thought he could trust, don’t seem so trustworthy now.

He didn't ask for the job, but now all that stands between us and chaos... is Colt.Colt McAlister was having the summer of his life. He spent his days surfing and his nights playing guitar on the beach with friends. He even met a girl and got his first car. But everything changes when his parents are killed in a freak accident.He's forced to leave his old life behind and move to Arizona with his grandfather. The only person he knows at the new high school is a childhood friend named Dani. And Oz, a guy he's sure he's never met but who is strangely familiar.But what if his parents' death wasn't an accident? His mother, an investigative reporter, was going to expose a secret mind-control program run by one of the world's largest companies. Before she could release the story, what if agents from Trident Biotech made sure she couldn't go public?Vowing to uncover the truth, Colt gets drawn into a secret world of aliens, shapeshifters, flying motorcycles, and invisible gateways.The Invasion has begun.

My rating:★★★★★

After the death of his parents, 16-year-old Colt moves from California to Arizona to live with his grandfather. In no time, Colt's life is turned upside down. Suspicions arise dealing with the death of his parents. Colt was told that they died in a car accident, but this car crash may not be just an "accident." You see, Colt's mom found out about a mind control program being run by a large company. Her goal was to publish an article about this for everyone to read. Unfortunately, she never got the chance.

Sixteen-year-old Lex Bartleby has sucker-punched her last classmate. Fed up with her punkish, wild behavior, her parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than that of shoveling manure.He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach her the family business.Lex quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated entirely by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. Along with her infuriating yet intriguing partner Driggs and a rockstar crew of fellow Grim apprentices, Lex is soon zapping her Targets like a natural born Killer.Yet her innate ability morphs into an unchecked desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she’s forced to Kill a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. So when people start to die—that is, people who aren’t supposed to be dying, people who have committed grievous crimes against the innocent—Lex’s curiosity is piqued. Her obsession grows as the bodies pile up, and a troubling question begins to swirl through her mind: if she succeeds in tracking down the murderer, will she stop the carnage—or will she ditch Croak and join in?

My rating:★★★★★

Lex's parents are tired of her rebellious attitude, which is why they decided to send her to her Uncle Mort's farm during the summer. Lex, of course, doesn't want to go. She rarely hears from her uncle...and seriously, a farm?! Lex can do nothing except listen to her parents and go spend the summer with her uncle out in the country. Her parents for some reason think that feeding cows and cleaning stables will somehow improve her attitude. But once she arrives in the little town of Croak, Lex realizes that her uncle Mort, has other plans in mind for her.

Tara Luna's life is complicated enough without moving to a new town during her senior year. How can she tell yet another set of new classmates that she talks to ghosts? How can she introduce them to Henry and Millicent, the ghost-couple who've watched over since childhood? And should she mention that she and her Uncle Pat have moved into a house haunted by a dead teen girl, who is already bugging Tara for help solving her murder?Welcome to Tara's Lunatic Life, the first book in bestselling author Sharon Sala's YA paranormal mystery series.

My rating:★★★★★

Ever since she can remember, Tara Luna (AKA Moon Girl to the sexy Flynn) has been able to communicate with ghosts. Not only is she a "ghost whisperer," she also is a bit psychic. She can sometimes feel what other people are feeling or sometimes she even knows what they're thinking. Quite a multi-talented young lady, isn't she?

Seventeen-year-old Lysander Shore and his family thought life was going to be better in Millingham. A safe haven from persecution and prejudice. But beneath the warm smiles and the small town charm lies a terrible secret no one will talk about.Only Lysander knows what it is. An insidious presence that murders at will and never leaves a trace. Lysander knows because he's seen it and he's pretty sure it saw him too.But nothing in Millingham happens by chance. The evil has waited nearly 350 years for Lysander to come home. Now it wants to make him pay.

My rating:★★★★☆

Lysander and his family moved to a new town, a town where people are suddenly being killed in a very gruesome way. Lysander meets a girl, Sam, whose mother was killed years ago. Her death was ruled out as a suicide, but Sam suspects that someone killed her, and that that someone is back for more. Lysander believes that this killer is after him, so he and Sam set out to find the killer before either one of them becomes the next victim.